Question of the Day

Should President Trump pardon Michael Flynn?

KABUL — A suicide bomber trying to blend in with street beggars blew himself up near a top intelligence official in a crowded part of the capital early yesterday, killing four persons, police said.

The attack’s apparent target, Kamulladeen Khan Echekzai, is a powerful Afghan elder from the southern city of Kandahar, the Taliban’s former power base when it ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.

The attack occurred one day after a suicide bomber on foot disguised in an army uniform blew himself up outside a police station in Helmand province, killing four police officers.

GAZA STRIP

Gunmen wound Hamas commander

GAZA CITY — Gunmen shot and wounded a senior Hamas commander, his wife and two of their children yesterday in an ambush that the Islamist group blamed on fighters from Fatah, its partner in a new Palestinian unity government.

In a separate incident in the northern Gaza Strip, Israeli ground forces fired at and hit “three terrorists who had two rocket launchers” near the border fence, an Israeli army spokesman said.

KENYA

Terror suspect sent to Guantanamo

A suspected al Qaeda operative captured in Kenya and accused of participating in a string of attacks in East Africa is the newest prisoner at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was sent there because he is thought to pose a danger to the United States, the military said yesterday.

Abdul Malik, whose nationality was not immediately clear, is a rare new arrival at Guantanamo. The military prisonhas been criticized by human rights advocates and U.S. allies and foes alike for holding hundreds of foreign men for years without trial.

CHINA

Tallest man takes much shorter bride

BEIJING — After searching high and low, the world’s tallest man has married a woman two-thirds his height, a Chinese newspaper reported yesterday.

Bao Xishun, a 7-foot-9 herdsman from Inner Mongolia, married 5-foot-6 saleswoman Xia Shujian several days ago, the Beijing News reported.

Mr. Bao’s 28-year-old bride is half his age and hailed from his hometown of Chifeng even though marriage advertisements were sent around the world, it said.

Mr. Bao was confirmed last year by Guinness World Records as the world’s tallest person. He was in the news in December after he used his long arms to save two dolphins by pulling plastic out of their stomachs.